British government IT procurement to be discrimination-free

In the UK, the government there has updated its IT procurement procedures to bring them into line with European directives. These directives demand that technology projects must not specify specific brands of microprocessor. This directive originally came about because it was revealed that a number of EU member states were mandating the use of Intel processors in IT projects. Complaints from AMD prompted a probe. Originally the UK was not under investigation, but the Office of Government Commerce has issued its version of the non-discriminatory technical specification guidelines set down in the Europe-wide regulations. The new rules require that contracting authorities must specify requirements in generic technical or performance terms, and that hardware specifications should exclude any reference to minimum processor clock speeds.